The Chicken Fights Reexamined
by TheNewIdea
Summary: A look at the aftermath of a chicken fight, focusing on legal proceedings, criminal charges, psychological and physical pain. Euphemisms are boring and I find them quite limiting when it comes to creative writing. I make an exception for comedic purposes. I believe that if you're to say something, say it in it's entirety. The start of a new AU. "High" T.


The fiddling of keys, the turning of the tumblers and the opening of the door began this story. Walking in, his right eye battered and bruised, his left barely open, Ernie the Giant Chicken slowly made his way to the couch, which was on the immediate left of the door. Turning on the floor lamp in the corner of the room, Ernie switched on the TV and without warning found himself watching Channel 5 News with Tom Tucker, it was perhaps the only show that anyone in Quahog watched regularly.

Ernie's house was simple in design. Directly behind him and the couch was a small wall that eventually made a sharp right down a hallway, where the bedroom and bathroom were found. To his right was a medium dining room area, a large kitchen table decorated for company was against a window that spanned the wall until it hit the half kitchen that occupied the other half of the main space. The living room, which fed into the dining room in an open concept, was also of medium size. The couch, which was green, was parallel to the wall and facing the TV. Along the leftmost wall, the wall that ran with the front door, was a matching reclining chair and a coffee table, the floor lamp and a small bookshelf making up the rest of the space. In front of the TV was a decent sized carpet space, mostly used for sitting and for extra chairs in case there was a party.

"Breaking news tonight" Tom Tucker began, "As local man Peter Griffin engaged in an all-out fist fight this afternoon with a giant chicken of all things over an apple pie in Cleveland Brown's Pie Kitchen."

Ernie scowled at this, not wanting to relive the ordeal and yet somehow forcing himself to go through with it.

"Witnesses say that they busted out of the pie shop and took the fight to the streets, destroying three fire hydrants and a streetlamp before causing a 7-way accident at the intersection of Grant and Broadway."

Ernie distinctly remembered the pie shop being on Grant and Newburg, two roads down.

"The fight, is was reported, moved on to the highway five minutes later, overturning semis and even destroying police helicopter in the wake of the aftermath."

Ernie also remembered an oil truck catching on fire and exploding on that highway as a result of the fight, but he supposed that Tom either ignored it, didn't know about the incident, or was simply that stupid. Either way, Ernie turned off the TV just as Joe Swanson appeared on the screen vouching for Peter's innocence.

"It's always the same" Ernie thought to himself, "No one ever thinks that he's the cause of the problem. I didn't even want the pie. All I said was that it looked good."

Standing up and stretching his wings, Ernie screamed in pain as he realized that his injuries were more extensive than originally thought. The majority of Ernie's feathers were falling off, his wings were bare and flabby- the result of a few bad choices and the fact that he was a chicken. His back and torso were covered in bruises, distinctive gashes were on each they were deep and would take months to heal. Ernie gingerly felt his beak and noticed that was misshapen as if it were broken. This would also take months to heal. But these were only physical wounds.

Psychologically, the injuries were much deeper. Ernie did not blame Peter for being stupid, for he knew that was something that Peter couldn't necessarily help but be. Ernie did however, blame Peter for prejudice and jumping to conclusions, both of these being the direct cause of 98% of the fights and Ernie acting mostly in self-defense, today being a prime example. All of this being said, Ernie was not in denial, for he knew that even he had crossed a line or two when it came to the fights. Self-defense cannot be relied on when you hurdle a mailbox at someone's head. He already been to charged twice for involuntary manslaughter, another result of the fights. Both times he got off on technicalities, the first time he used the self-defense claim, the second, temporary insanity. Ernie had no plans of going to prison, taking Peter and the fights out of account, he was generally seen as an honest and upholding citizen. But these things made little difference, for Ernie knew that the people would see what they wanted to see.

Slowly and carefully, Ernie made his way to the bathroom down the hallway opposite the bedroom. Stepping into the shower and turning on cold water, Ernie froze up as soon as the water hit his body, for it was directly over his back wound. Biting his lower lip Ernie forced himself through the shock and managed to pick up the bar soap on the eyelevel shelf only to drop it on the tub floor. Stooping down to pick it up, the giant chicken accidentally banged his head on his way up, causing himself further pain and to scream a second time. He wanted to swear but refrained himself, remembering the wooden plaque that he had hung above the front door- In this house, all deeds done are through Him and for Him.

"Clucking soap" Ernie replied, his personal euphemism for the plural of fuck, "Clucking shelf, clucking Tom Tucker…clucking cluck clucking cluck."

It was a stupid enough thing to hear the word _cluck_ replace _fuck_ in such a way. Ernie knew this and yet he was a giant chicken of principles, that is to say, Ernie did whatever his wife told him to do within reason and refrained from swearing as much as possible on her behalf.

Ernie didn't bother using shampoo, for he could barely move his wings up over his head, much less wash anything above his neck. He did however, allow himself to lean ever so slightly back, his head facing the shower head, in order to wash off as much of the blood as possible.

Turning off the water and stepping out of the shower, Ernie also didn't bother drying off, simply deciding that standing above the air vent for a minute or two would get the job done and require the minimum amount of movement necessary.

"One of these days I'm going to get out of this town" Ernie told himself, if nothing else to ease his own mind, "There's just too much going on for me to stay. Too much going for us to stay."

Leaving the bathroom and shuffling over to the bedroom, Ernie saw dimmed candles and a bouquet of roses on the dresser. Without even looking at anything else Ernie knew that his wife was dressed provocatively. His eyes moved down on the floor, corn was strewn about the bedroom, one of their many traditions. In the upper right corner of the room, against the wall of the door, was a dresser, on top of which was the TV. Channel 5 News was on again, the fight having lost the spotlight in favor of Trisha Takanawa, the Asian reporter, doing a special on the local animal shelter.

"Good for Jasper" Ernie mumbled to himself, "About time that place got some recognition…about time we got a dog come to think of it. Be a good change around here."

Ernie dragged himself to the bed, which was in the middle of the room, taking up most of the space. Three steps and he was at the foot of it. Having lost all energy, Ernie simply collapsed on the bed, his legs giving up their purpose for the day. Crawling up to his pillow on the queen sized bed, Ernie rolled himself over and said nothing, simply allowing himself to breathe, it didn't help that the TV remained on and that Tom Tucker was talking once again, but Ernie decided to leave it as it was, too tired to find the remote and his legs refusing to do anything else but sprawl themselves out.

"Sorry I couldn't get the cake" Ernie said in the darkness, speaking to his wife, Nicole, a giant hen, who was sleeping in the next pillow, "I gave it everything I had. I guess it wasn't good enough."

He went unanswered, his wife fast asleep, dreaming dreams of simpler times in simpler places when things were easy. Ernie wondered if perhaps Nicole was dreaming about him like he did about her every night. Sometimes they weren't favorable dreams, in fact, in most cases they were nightmares. Ernie knew that Nicole could've done better, she could've married someone with money, someone with looks. The fact that she didn't either means she's insane or he has those things and he doesn't know it, for no one in their right mind would marry someone for love, the idea in and of itself was ridiculous.

"I think it'd be nice to go somewhere and not cause destruction and mayhem at every turn" Ernie continued, "I think that's what we need. We need a vacation. Just you and me. No friends, no family."

Ernie waited for a response that he knew he wouldn't receive. After a few seconds of silence, he resigned himself to sleep and began to dream about possible vacation destinations. His first thought was Hawaii, it was the only place in terms of desirable US vacation spots that he hadn't been to yet and figured that it would be a nice change from Quahog's now bitter weather. As these thoughts crossed his mind he hated himself for missing the one night that he wanted to keep.

"Happy anniversary" Ernie whispered as he looked around the room one final time, finally stopping on his wife, who was wearing the lingerie that he got her the week before, "I wish I could've been there. It must've been really something special."

As Ernie went to sleep, Tom Tucker could be heard on the TV. The conversation had switched back to the fight earlier that afternoon as more details were released.

"An arrest warrant has been issued for the giant chicken, who has been charged with assault and battery, destruction of city property, over usage of euphemisms, jaywalking, conspiracy, excessive pie throwing, the interruption of the mail service, bad impersonations of pop culture icons, arson, unlicensed use of a flamethrower, and unnecessary roughness."

A long, uncomfortable pause followed. After a few seconds Tom spoke again.

Anyone with any information on the giant chicken, preferably a name, should report to the local police station."

As if things couldn't get any worse.


End file.
